Refugees advised to grow vegetables
Johny Okot
With the growing number of refugees entering Uganda every day, the general nutrition and food security of both the refugees and the host communities still remains a big challenge to deal with.
Most of them depend on the little food relief from the World Food Programme (WFP) which includes beans, maize flour and cooking oil.
It is on this note that refugees and the host communities in the West Nile region have been advised to adopt off season vegetable farming to supplement on their dietary needs, food security and income generation.
The message was passed by the country knowledge manager of East West Seed International Annet Kiiza during a farmer’s field day held in Omugo Sub County headquarters in Arua district on Thursday.
She said through the Nutrition and Income Generation Intervention (NIGI) project which was launched in February 2019, many refugees and members of the host community in West Nile region have been trained on modern and climate smart vegetable farming.
With the ever changing weather conditions, the farmers are also being trained on simple irrigation techniques using locally generated equipment.
The farmer's field day brought in farmers and interested persons from various refugee settlement camps in West Nile.
The two year project is expected to introduce about 5,000 local farmers within the refugee settlements into off season vegetable farming
